Public Food Market | 136 Blackstone Street | Haymarket | Downtown

Re: Public Food Market

This will be a great success, even if the space it'll be in is no great shakes.

Hope it's a supplement to the present Blackstone Block produce market, not a substitute.
 
Re: Public Food Market

I hope this project happens. The empty brand-new building is annoying and needs to be filled. Ideally they'll do it in a way that allows people to cut through the market while walking to the T station or the parking garage.
 
Re: Public Food Market

It seems terribly small tho. Cleveland's is bigger!?! I think a market would be great, but I don't want it half-assed and tucked in behind quincy market. We deserve and need a legitimate big time market.
 
Re: Public Food Market

We should be grateful for small blessings. Too often we let the ideal become the enemy of the possible.
 
Re: Public Food Market

Ideally, it would be larger, similar to Reading Terminal in Philly or Lexington Market in Baltimore, but I enjoyed a visit to a smaller market in the Capitol Hill neighborhood of D.C.. Can't remember the name of it. That market was quite small, but had lots of atmosphere - historic building, high vaulted ceilings etc. I imagine this site won't have that type of open air feel since its on the first floor of a building with a parking garage on top, but if done right could still be an asset to the city.
 
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Re: Public Food Market

In good weather it could spill out into the large bare brick plaza outside. If popular enough, maybe the city could even close the adjoining Greenway street some days of the week, and let it spill further into the parkland.

I do wonder why the city couldn't put part of this on the first floor of Faneuil Hall, though, replacing the touristy stuff there now.
 
Re: Public Food Market

Because the touristy stuff is kitschy but works, whereas this building is empty?

I would prefer to see this rump of a structure, with its prison-like glassless bar windows, purged from the vicinity of the Blackstone Block forever. The first floor has low ceilings and its not well-suited for a market. Still, this would be better than condoning its current emptiness. Along with the Government Center Garage project, this part of the city could be transformed from lifeless pit to active centre.
 
Re: Public Food Market

Oh, you misunderstand; due to the farmers' market moving into that building, there will be no construction on the Government Center Garage property. It would make things too difficult for shoppers and farmers to work around.
 
Re: Public Food Market

A history of this building anyone?

Why is such prime space empty?
 
Re: Public Food Market

It's got these dreary colonnades which are very nice in foul weather but which don't make the best advertising for retail outlets - although you'd think, given the T stop that empties from this building, that there would be a market for something... Even the foul Gov't Ctr. Garage has a Dunkin and Kaplan.

I remember offices occupying the first floor for awhile, I think.
 
Re: Public Food Market

xcranes068-1.jpg
need one of the other side
 
Re: Public Food Market

jass said:
A history of this building anyone?

Why is such prime space empty?
Click to expand...

It was an gravel parking lot up into the 1990's. The Mass turnpike authority owns the garage. I believe it was constructed when Big Dig construction was in full swing. To appease businesses affected by the Big Dig construction, they allow many nearby businesses, especially from the N. End, to validate your parking stub for this garage (validation is for $3 up to 3 hours, after 3 hrs it goes to market rate $$$$).

I think MTA ownership probably is why it has been empty for quite some time.
 
Re: Public Food Market

Let's not forget that the primary purpose of this building was to wrap a Big Dig ventilation shaft. So you can't just demolish it.

I don't get why MTA ownership would explain the lack of tenants, though -- wouldn't they want to maximize rent income?

If you look at old urban renewal maps from the 1960s (one is inside Government Center station), this was once seen as a good site for a hotel.
 
Re: Public Food Market

It would have been nice if it had been built up to cover the vent stacks, instead of leaving them exposed like factory chimneys. I'm sure sensitivity to the Blackstone Block had something to do with it, but the ugly punch-hole windows (seriously, it looks like the building is still under construction, being gutted for demolition, or was bombed in some war) and the exposed vent stacks themselves do far worse damage to the area than a few more stories would have.
 
Re: Public Food Market

Cleared (late Sixties):

0400.jpg


Just before clearance:

0425.jpg

Same diminutive parcels and fine grain as Blackstone Block. It even had a street running through it. Hatch patterns represent BRA use categories; some parcels had four (e.g. retail, residential, office, light industry --all in one building!)

That is the meaning of scale.
 
Re: Public Food Market

Hmm, that map doesn't show why it was cleared -- the parcel is just empty. The Government Center T station map shows it as a proposed hotel, and the long narrow block south of it (between Congress and Union streets) as a proposed office building.
 
Re: Public Food Market

The difference between public ownership and private ownership is that the MBTA has no real incentive to generate revenue. In my opinion.
 
Re: Public Food Market

Ron Newman said:
Hmm, that map doesn't show why it was cleared -- the parcel is just empty. The Government Center T station map shows it as a proposed hotel, and the long narrow block south of it (between Congress and Union streets) as a proposed office building.
Click to expand...
Man proposes, and God disposes.
 
Re: Public Food Market

Were there plans to demo the Blackstone block?
 
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